CONTEMPORARY ART

Chromophobia

As several exhibitions in london show, colour obsesses many artists – so why do critics dismiss this interest as decorative – or worse?

ARCHITECTURE

Le Corbusier! Our Saviour!

The V&A’s modernism exhibition presents an intriguing puzzle. Why do the style’s dogmas still exert such a grip on so many? Surely it is because modernism is in essence a religion.

A classical warrior

Professor Sir John Boardman, Britain’s most distinguished historian of ancient Greek art, talks to Diana Scarisbrick about his dazzlingly ambitious new book, his early career and his current campaign against politically correct obstacles to the collecting and study of ancient art. Portrait by Derry Moore.

Contemporary design

The Cooper-Hewitt’s remarkable survey of 500 years of flatware shows how modern designers have enjoyed creating new forms for knives, forks and spoons, writes Amicia de Moubray.

Britain and the Bauhaus

Alan Powers challenges the view that the reception of the Bauhaus in 1930s Britain went little further than providing temporary shelter for some of its teachers. Common roots with the Bauhaus in the Arts and Crafts movement helps to explain a lively British interest in the school’s ideals, among not only architects but also designers – and even puppeteers.

Modernism and more

The V&A’s ‘Modernism’ exhibition demonstrates the centrality of photography to the style. But, as Kate Best and Sophie Leighton discuss, the museum’s own collection reveals that modernism was just one strand in photographic culture between the wars.

A day in the sun

Modernism was strongly associated with the interwar cult of sunlight and fresh air. Peyton Skipwith discusses the way that British artists of the period depicted men and women of all classes enjoying leisure pursuits out of doors, the subject of a remarkable exhibition currently in Manchester.

Cracking the Poussin code

Ever since the publication in 1982 of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, the mysterious Shepherd’s Monument at Shugborough in Staffordshire has attracted numerous bizarre interpretations. Eileen Harris investigates its real meaning, following a trail that leads via Poussin’s vision of Arcadia to Pelham’s Urn at Esher Place, Surrey.